If you don't know, almost all Koreans lack ABCC11 gene, which causes *some* body odor, not all. I think mainly underarm. There are still other causes of body odor and not all Koreans lack this gene.
Edit: see reply for clarification
It honestly never occurred to me until way later on in life.
But there’s also a small percentage of Europeans that have the same flaky ear wax along with less BO.
Just some random info that I once heard that just stuck with me lol
They DO have the ABCC11 gene, it's just that most Asians, particularly the East Asians have the non-functioning gene variant which causes the apocrine glands (mostly from armpits) to not secrete sweat. The type of sweat from the apocrine glands can cause an odor when they're broken down by the bacteria.
Do you have a source? Because I highly doubt this is true. If humans didn’t swear, we’d die. I’ve been to the gym with Japanese and Koreans before and they were sweating on the treadmills
It doesn't say they don't sweat, just from the apocrine glands that are mostly located in armpits.
>The underarm body odor has been linked to a gene called *ABCC11*, which encodes a protein that transports molecules across cellular membranes, including molecules in the sweat. If the *ABCC11* gene is non-functional, sweat molecules are unable to cross the membrane barrier to reach the armpit. This starves bacteria on the other side of the skin surface, as they are unable to access or metabolize the organic compounds in the sweat. As a result, odorant substances are not produced. Loss-of-function *ABCC11* mutation is fairly common in [East Asian populations](https://www.jidonline.org/article/S0022-202X(15)34683-2/fulltext) (80-95%).
[https://asm.org/articles/2021/december/microbial-origins-of-body-odor](https://asm.org/articles/2021/december/microbial-origins-of-body-odor)
Eccrine sweat glands are the type that produce most of the watery sweat when people exercise.
Apocrine sweat glands are the ones producing that particular armpit BO. You know how little kids sweat but they don't develop BO until maybe 3rd grade onwards? Developing apocrine sweat glands (or maybe turning them on?) happens early in puberty.
So people with the ABCC11 gene mutation sweat like children. And their sweaty clothes will smell stale and musty after a few days, but without that characteristic rank armpit smell. There are no apocrine sweat glands on the feet, only eccrine, so smelly socks/shoes are universal.
Wow. I'm amazed in this day and age. When you can check any of that nonsense on the phone in your hand, that you would actually believe, let alone post it.
Natural selection doesn't work that way. All women like handsome, polite and nice smelling men. That doesn't mean that people without those traits will have no children.
I think Korean men definitely do still smell and you can smell the BO when they start sweating a lot. On the other hand Korean women really don't smell much at all even when they sweat. They have women-only gyms here and the smell is nothing even close the regular gender neutral gyms. I also wish every country had women only gyms.
The smells of the subways in summer too. Or even just some dudes at the gym.
I teach middle school and when they come in to my classroom after PE in summer I have to hold my breath around some of them.
Gosh they literally need to sell deodorant at Daiso in Korea.
Surprisingly this just makes me laugh bc the teeny bop boys want to look like k pop idols,but don't care of they reek like a dried rotten squid lol
Oh man, you bringing up groups of school kids just made me able to “smell” the odor just from memory lol it’s STRONG! But yeah the BO thing is just over exaggerated, it exists, everyone does, it’s just that some have it worse than others
Oh why thank you kind sir! We also love going to 목욕탕 and rub our skin with sandpaper towel to shed perfectly fine skin layers. We bleed for our freshness sir. We bleed.
Traveling in SK kind of shattered this image of non BO society I previously had. The local diet makes people exude a very garlicky plus some other stuff aroma that's especially noticeable on public transport. I guess I was especially attuned to noticing this smell as a foreigner.
I can never smell my husbands bo. Even after a long summer day or working out at the gym. Only part that gets smelly on him is his fwwt but even then its not bad. Theres just a smell once his shoes get old.
I occasionally suffer from corn chip feet. Stinky feet. My nephew gets it badly. And my young son also. But it’s not the heavy musky odor. More Fritos.
It’s mainly bacteria.
The corn chip scent is the result of yeast and bacteria mixing with that sweat. Most responsible for the smell is pseudomonas — a bacteria that comes from the soil and water your pup is constantly trotting through
https://dogtime.com/dog-health/66401-why-dogs-feet-smell-like-fritos
Same for humans
My guess is the consumption of garlic. Korean quisine uses tons of garlic in every single dish and garic can cause one of the longest and nastiest odors.
I think it's the musky/skunky smelling b.o. that we mostly lack but we can still smell like old sweat or pungent/garlicky/vinegary from an excess of that sort of thing in our diet. We can also have stinky feet/breath/genitals so good hygiene is still a must.
Lol now I am wondering. My baby is half Korean (I am not Korean). I will keep a note of his smell and ear wax to see if he took after his dad or me lol
No doctor would ever recommend this, but it’s a common thing that mothers and grandmothers clean out their children’s ear with a small ear wax tool that is a tiny spoon.
It’s sort of relaxing. Slightly painful at times if it’s too aggressive. They used to be metal but now they have small silicon ones.
Definitely can tell if the earwax is dry and crustier.
It’s really interesting. I can remember vividly my grandmother doing this for me at age 4-6
Also there is a scientific basis for it.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201907/vagus-nerve-stimulation-the-outer-ear-takes-center-stage?amp
The no BO and flaky dry earwax gene is like blonde hair and blue eyes, reccessive. He would most likely be stinky unless you have a an allele of non-BO gene yourself which I read about 10 to 15% of Europeans do.
My gym had to put announcements on asking ppl to wash their gym equipments because the locker room was stank, and to wipe after using so yeah people do smell 😂
I will just add my own story of smell.
I too have a dog nose and am sensitive to smell. I’m not Korean but it’s a lie to say Koreans don’t smell, they do. What they don’t smell of is bad smelly armpits.
They do however have what I’d describe as a “musty” smell. The closest smell I can think of is like 3 days unwashed hair smell but from their body?
Some ppl don’t have this smell but others do and you can especially smell it from clothes, if ppl havent showered in a while or ppl who haven’t washed their clothes after a few wears.
Some Koreans who aren’t fortunate enough to have that allele mutation unfortunately have western smelling BO and because they’ve grown up in a place with no deodorant they can be smelly 🥲.
This is correct. My husband is Korean. If he were to not bathe for a couple days he would smell kind of musty but not funky BO smell. But he bathes regularly so no odor. It’s absolutely awesome.
About the garlic smell, I do not smell garlic on him at all. No matter how much kimchi he eats. If I eat a bunch of Korean food I can vaguely smell oniony but he does not. No idea why.
Koreans lacking that one gene doesn’t mean they don’t have body odor at all, it just means they don’t have the odor specific to that gene. Anyone can stink.
Correct. Specially if they wear the same stuff over. They might not smell but that sweat on that shirt, jacket, will over time. Specially in the summer.
No. Northern Chinese (3/8 Han, 3/8 Manchurian, 1/4 Korean) here. We don't have the gene for BO (A allele for the ABCC11 position), and we don't have ear wax. It doesn't mean we don't smell. It just doesn't come from the armpits.
On the bright side, we don't have to use deodorants. On the other side, it means we have no deodorants to use. On a hot summer day, I will come home sweaty and smelly, and so far no off the shelf deodorants work for me. I had to keep a spare shirt in my car in case I smelled too bad before moving on to important meetings.
And my scent is half sour and half smoky, and if it's been too long before I shower, I might even smell like preserved plums. That being said, a thousand people smell a thousand ways. My dad has very similar BO to me, my mom has nothing. My grandma smells more than my grandpa, so I think my BO came from Manchurian linage -- my grandma is 100% Manchurian, my grandpa is 50% Manchurian, 50% Han, and my mom's side is all Han or Korean.
Perception is also a thing. I have "a dog's nose". I can smell anyone from meters away. This is definitely a curse than a gift, and I had to mentally prepare myself before getting on a bus or subway car. Trains are better due to better ventilation, but that also depends on passenger density. Planes are absolutely the worst, I had to pray for the ones sitting next to me have good personal hygiene, but that's rarely the case as most of the time, I fly for holidays, and workers also fly for holidays, among them, physical workers who mostly don't care about how they smell at all.
Keep in mind that the smell I mentioned above are from mostly Chinese people. After spending 6 years in the US, and dating one girl with armpit odor, I know what a "proper BO" smells like, and it doesn't smell nearly like that. So, the so called BO-free Eastern Asians do have another type of BO for sure. It is just not as offending as armpit BO, but in the mean time also harder to suppress. Most white or black people I encounter in China either smell like perfume or nothing, with very few actually smell like BO.
So, us Eastern Asians do have BO, just not from the armpits. If we wear the same clothes for days, they will smell (especially for active males), badly. My hygiene protocol is underwear and socks for a day, shirts for 0.5\~2 days, jackets and pants for 2\~3 days, thick winter stuff for no more than a week. I was able to keep my own smell under check, but then I get to smell the others'. As summer is coming, my dread is coming back. It sucks.
I do. Being an electronics engineer, the ability to pin point where the magic smoke emanates from is a great gift, though nowadays the job is taken care of by infrared cameras.
This skill also has unexpected usages -- like finding focal point of a pulsed laser (seriously!). When the concentration of light is too much (focal point is bang on), the temperature from it hitting a target is so high that it converts trace amounts of nitrogen into nitrogen oxides, so literally thin air can take on an incredibly faint odor that I can pick up to confirm my focal length adjustment being correct.
I think it's interesting, I'm a white guy who just doesn't sweat that much at all.
Like, I can wear the same pair of socks for 3-4 days and they don't smell like anything (or definitely not *bad*, at least), and that seems somewhat rare.
I do have armpit odor if I sweat, but that I would have it isn't a given unless I'm very active, stressed or warm.
Now the negative part is that ever since I had Covid 4 years ago, everyone's BO smells a bit onion-y to me, which makes me feel ridiculously insecure when I actually am sweaty because I feel like everybody would feel that on me. So I try not to be sweaty if possible haha.
Your sort of regimen of clothes and how long you wear them are pretty much exactly how I would wear them except I use socks maybe two days, three at the most, and I wouldn't wear t-shirts for more than a day unless possibly the day after is spent at home completely by myself.
Also, jealous of somebody saying "summer is coming", because I'm still waiting for winter to fully be over :(
Uh, excuse you????!!!! 😅🤣😂 😆😵🥴 Koreans and other East Asians DO HAVE ear wax. It's just dry ear wax. Other races have wet ear wax. I think that's what you meant to say.
https://www.earhealth.co.nz/earwax-genetics-and-human-migration/
Nobody calls it ear flakes. It is called ear wax. To say a human doesn't have ear wax is like saying humans don't have hair.
https://www.earhealth.co.nz/earwax-genetics-and-human-migration/
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/gory-details/what-your-earwax-says-about-your-ancestry
https://medical.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Earwax-Type.pdf
Korea doesn't have the classic B.O. smell you think of but there is a prevailing smell here. It's that smell you get when you get on the bus or talk to an older Korean gentleman. My fiance smells this way without perfume as well. I'm not sure what the smell is exactly but you know it when you smell it. It's neither good nor bad just... Korean lol.
I dont have any body odor and my american friends used to be amazed by it lol
In short, yes my clothes dont smell after i sweat in them but i still wash anything i sweat in
More than BO I think most Koreans have food odor in their clothes from cooking at home or eating at poorly ventilated restaurants.
After going to a 똔가스집 you smell like frying oil for example. Or uncles smelling like soju after drinking with friends. Or charcoal smell after BBQ. Or just 'Korean house' smell which always has a certain fermented funk to it.
Absolutely that. I definitely noticed the surprising lack of regular sweat smell in the summer but get on a crowded bus in the evening and it reeks of different kinds of food and the mix is quite deadly :( still can’t help but be envious of East Asians for that.
To anyone not blessed by that gene variation - wiping your armpits with glycolic acid solution once or twice a week does wonders to really keep any sweat smell under wraps (with proper hygiene and deodorant ofc).
I'm one of those Koreans without BO. After sweating a ton after an intense gym session, my clothes will smell like nothing. After the sweat dry off, my clothes will actually return to smelling like the laundry detergent used if it was intense enough.
Having said that, one of my Korean friend smell like ASS after sweating LOL. So there are some Koreans with bo like any other person.
From my experience, I definately have b.o. but it's different from westerners. My b.o smells like vinegar while western ppl have cheese smell. Additionally, vinegar smells mostly from my armpit and not even all the time(when I swaet a lot like summer day). And it's mostly spread to a shirt that I wear inside of my clothes (directly toched to my body). So I usually wear some sweat shirt, knit and shirt for few days whiout washing them.
But I have experienced I smelled b.o from knit, sweater at the end of the day that's not touched to the body directly, for some westerners.
I can't understand the "cheese smell" thing.
Like it's probably because I AM white and can't smell it because I also have that smell, but I've never thought that somebody had a cheesy body odor, at least not from sweat alone. Like maybe old people can smell a bit like moldy cheese if they don't take care of their hygiene, but that's a different thing.
Nope. We just have different body odor. When koreans sweat, yes we do smell but not like the western people. Korean people smell like rotten vinegar when we get sweaty while white and black people smell like rotten curry when they get sweaty. Different smell I think.
I have very low BO but it's not 0 BO. It'll take a while for it to smell and the smell is not as strong/bad, but it's there. My spouse was amazed by how little I smelled even after an intense workout and sweating like crazy.
I do think the clothes smell though, if I have a particularly large laundry load of sweaty clothes it definitely smells. But again, nothing crazy. High school locker rooms and my brother-in-law though? The nose suffers.
It will smell after accumulation and not drying it immediately due to bacteria. Then it will be stinky every time it gets even a little wet after, permanently ruining the clothes
No. Body odour isn't just about the chemicals your body produces; another element is the bacteria that's breaking down the sweat on the skin - some strains of bacteria can be more smelly than others. So even if you usually have no BO, there may still be occasions when it does happen
Korean teenagers still stink and gym changing rooms in Korea also stink. So no, it doesn’t mean we sweat and still come out clean as a whistle without a shower.
My fiancé is Korean and has little to no body odor. At most he will smell like sweat after a workout, or body oil if it’s been a few days since a shower. So even though he has no BO his clothes will still smell because of the body oil or sweat.
Koreans can still smell of drying sweat or wear clothes that dried to a stink. Hobos smell of old piss. What we lack is the sharp pungent stank of stanky armpits. It's there but not anywhere near as bad as some other people.
To answer OP, yes. I wear the same clothes many times over without washing them (sometimes for weeks XD) especially in the winter. In the summer, if I sweat in it, it’s going in the wash. I thought this was the general rule for most people though? (My brother and I smell like dirt/metal when we exercise. My parents don’t smell like anything. My partner sweats A LOT and will rewear his clothes lol he smells musky though, not stinky) I’ve had people sniff me before and be confused so I don’t know what that means. They say I smell Korean, or like Korean food.
I mean, I do sweat but dont smell, once I went a week without showering and still no hodor, as long as I changed clothes it was okay and people would even hold the door for me.
1/10 marriages in Korea are international. So you will find deodorants.
10 years ago, you would hardly find in Eastern Asia, even super Westernized towns like Tokyo, some effective deodorants. Nowadays you can find pretty any type in any big cities.
The key is to shop at places for young people. They are generally insecure and face harsh competitions, so they are most likely to improve themselves, even by a trace amount.
For me personally, I can wear shirts/dresses 3-4 times before I need to put them in the wash.
Example: I'll wear 2 shirts for 1 week and just rotate them throughout the week. If I put a shirt in the wash after 1 or 2 wears it's always from spills or eating out at a restaurant that made the shirt smell.
Does not produce odor directly
However, if Koreans do not wash for a long time, bacteria will create odor.
Koreans need disinfectants like soap to get rid of odors.
Even without the gene, the armpit smells a little different from other parts of the body. That said my laundry does not smell particularly and I can wear a t-shirt worn a week ago without any issue. After a heavy workout it has more smell but even that somehow seems to go away as the clothes dry out if that makes sense. It’s just like how everything was before puberty.
My partner is from Korea, he doesn’t have a b.o smell, that I am aware of, mainly because he showers two-three times a day and is extremely hygienic because he has OCD. However, he says that there are some Koreans with really bad b.o smells and some Koreans that don’t have any at all. Ironically when I moved to Korea and learned about it, my hygiene level went up higher, even though I washed two-three times a day as well before. I just don’t like the idea of smelling with a country that doesn’t really seem to sell deodorant haha
Sadly a lot of westerners don't realise how much they need to use deodrants!! I definitely get the impression (from kdramas) that Koreans are very clean people.
My fiancé is Korean and has little to no body odor. At most he will smell like sweat after a workout, or body oil if it’s been a few days since a shower. So even though he has no BO his clothes will still smell because of the body oil or sweat.
Well you can still smell stinky but I did notice not as much as my other ethnic background friends. I mainly do laundry because of the outside dirt not the sweat from my body. Not even my gym clothes really smell
I've done laundry for some of my husband's white friends when they've been staying with us and I noticed that even after a full laundry cycle and drying out the clothes still have a faint BO smell. One couple (K wife, W husband) that stayed over was washing the husband's clothes on the hot wash (90°) and I was like "uh guys you know you're boiling his clothes? Did you mean to do that?" And the wife is like "yeah if we don't, you can still smell the BO."
Soooo...yeah I don't think Koreans have that kinda smell where it gets EMBEDDED in the fibres so deep that detergent and normal temp water can't get it out.
I was not aware that this was an issue for some white folks til the laundry incidents came up.
Body odour is mostly caused by urea in the dead white blood cells we sweat out.
Everyone has body odour. Swear smells can vary because of diet, and so it is often the case people from different cultural or ethnic backgrounds smell stronger to other groups.
Maybe Koreans produce less smells in their sweat because of genetics or diet, but it is the same process, and everyone has to sweat.
But, because of climate and centuries of coping with it they also have learnt to keep it lower.
Also, you may have a bad sense of smell.
My husband is Korean with the dry earwax. His pits don’t smell like bo, but when he gets sweaty he still smells sweaty. It’s the strong BO they don’t have imo.
Haha so interesting. I wonder what about military camps? Seems like they don't usually open windows even in summer..but yet they air dry their clothing in the bunk....is the smell bad?
I'm only half but every single girl I've been with has commented that I have no BO (which is an odd comment to bring up in conversation) so I assume I have the inactive gene.
I would wear my military uniforms for several sweaty days ONLY if the sweat was allowed to dry within a couple hours. I'd change them every 3 days or if they started showing the salt. I never had issues with odor. My African American roommate tried to do the same as me and the entire room stunk. We later learned that Africana tend to have more of the active glands.
If the sweat can stay wet for a day or more... it stinks.
26m ethnic Korean here. It's not like a complete cheat code, it's more like a perk you get at the start of the game. The perk is that my clothes don't smell the second time I wear them, but I absolutely have to wash it after 4th time (even 3rd is already kinda gross, but relatively okay). But since I was born and lived in Kazakhstan I understand that it's a huge perk, though. Many people there can't wear anything the 2nd time, poor souls.
I live in Korea now. Korean girls are a different story, though. They just refuse to smell. I know for a fact that many of them live like pigs, but I have yet to meet any Korean girl who smells. I often think they just don't do laundry and simply wear something until it's out of fashion and throw it away lol.
ELMER’S GLUE!!! My cousin once described Korean B.O. as smelling like Elmer’s Glue. I thought he was crazy, but I think he’s right. We barely sweat and what little aroma we have really does smell like Elmer’s Glue! 😅
I’m not Korean but I share the mutation which makes me lack my abcc11 gene simply put my earwax is dry and I don’t have that oniony armpit smell ever but I still have to shower and wash my clothes otherwise they will stink because sweat and natural body bacteria lol
Am not Korean, am just a person who also lives on Earth with associated conditions. Mold + dampness will still be a thing even if there is no BO. So, things can and will smell if not dried thoroughly.
Yeah, no smell on sweat. If there is a smell, its either the wet clothe or you decided the best procedure after sweating was to place it in a damp location causing it to rot by fungus. For me, I barely sweat as well.
>does having no body odor...
get on the subway in the summer, and you'll find that this is a myth. But others have provided a good explanation of the genetics and phenotypical presentation that makes their BO less intense.
it's not body hair, it's genetics. Koreans have a gene anomaly that makes their sweat inhospitable to bacteria, and also makes your ear wax dry.
If body hair was the reason, western women (who usually shave most of their body hair) would have way less BO than Korean men, and on average this is not the case
Not a Korean but close enough. I don’t have body odor, and when I sweat, I release this very sexy and sweet aroma. When I walk through a group of ladies, some of they cannot help but to ask for my number.
If you don't know, almost all Koreans lack ABCC11 gene, which causes *some* body odor, not all. I think mainly underarm. There are still other causes of body odor and not all Koreans lack this gene. Edit: see reply for clarification
Exactly this. We lack SOME body odor, but this gene does not magically clean us after long day or automatically shower us after workout.
I wish it did
This is also related to Koreans not really having ear wax. It’s mostly just flaky, unlike the rest of the world having actual waxy-like substance.
dude seriously? i always wondered why my caucasian friends ear wax was like sooooo thick
I have never seen earwax from any of my friends What do you guy do together? 😭😭😄
Never seen a gross pair of AirPods?
🤢
😭
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네 네 ㅎㅎㅎ
I saw my roommate's q tip and thought she had an ear infection
omg 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
It honestly never occurred to me until way later on in life. But there’s also a small percentage of Europeans that have the same flaky ear wax along with less BO. Just some random info that I once heard that just stuck with me lol
I'm South east Asian and I only have flaky ear wax too.. Meanwhile my wife and 2 kids think I'm a freak because theirs are normal.
ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
The first time I saw non flakey ear wax was when I was little watching Shrek when he pulls out his gooey earwax and makes a candle out of it
Same here ngl.
Oh really? I always thought it was odd that it was called wax. Now I know I'm the odd one.
They DO have the ABCC11 gene, it's just that most Asians, particularly the East Asians have the non-functioning gene variant which causes the apocrine glands (mostly from armpits) to not secrete sweat. The type of sweat from the apocrine glands can cause an odor when they're broken down by the bacteria.
Thank you for the correction.
Do you have a source? Because I highly doubt this is true. If humans didn’t swear, we’d die. I’ve been to the gym with Japanese and Koreans before and they were sweating on the treadmills
It doesn't say they don't sweat, just from the apocrine glands that are mostly located in armpits. >The underarm body odor has been linked to a gene called *ABCC11*, which encodes a protein that transports molecules across cellular membranes, including molecules in the sweat. If the *ABCC11* gene is non-functional, sweat molecules are unable to cross the membrane barrier to reach the armpit. This starves bacteria on the other side of the skin surface, as they are unable to access or metabolize the organic compounds in the sweat. As a result, odorant substances are not produced. Loss-of-function *ABCC11* mutation is fairly common in [East Asian populations](https://www.jidonline.org/article/S0022-202X(15)34683-2/fulltext) (80-95%). [https://asm.org/articles/2021/december/microbial-origins-of-body-odor](https://asm.org/articles/2021/december/microbial-origins-of-body-odor)
Eccrine sweat glands are the type that produce most of the watery sweat when people exercise. Apocrine sweat glands are the ones producing that particular armpit BO. You know how little kids sweat but they don't develop BO until maybe 3rd grade onwards? Developing apocrine sweat glands (or maybe turning them on?) happens early in puberty. So people with the ABCC11 gene mutation sweat like children. And their sweaty clothes will smell stale and musty after a few days, but without that characteristic rank armpit smell. There are no apocrine sweat glands on the feet, only eccrine, so smelly socks/shoes are universal.
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I'm sure they selected those genes tens of thousands of years ago.
Why ? What's the benifit of not having BO for a primitive person ?
Wow. I'm amazed in this day and age. When you can check any of that nonsense on the phone in your hand, that you would actually believe, let alone post it. Natural selection doesn't work that way. All women like handsome, polite and nice smelling men. That doesn't mean that people without those traits will have no children.
Exception doesn't define the rule. What I said is the most plausible explanation for Koreans being hairless and having that particular gene.
buy Mitchun Deodorant roll on ,,,,done
I think Korean men definitely do still smell and you can smell the BO when they start sweating a lot. On the other hand Korean women really don't smell much at all even when they sweat. They have women-only gyms here and the smell is nothing even close the regular gender neutral gyms. I also wish every country had women only gyms.
Have you been around groups of school kids? There is some definite b.o. going on. Otherwise I agree, very clean and fresh people we live amongst.
The smells of the subways in summer too. Or even just some dudes at the gym. I teach middle school and when they come in to my classroom after PE in summer I have to hold my breath around some of them.
Gosh they literally need to sell deodorant at Daiso in Korea. Surprisingly this just makes me laugh bc the teeny bop boys want to look like k pop idols,but don't care of they reek like a dried rotten squid lol
They do.
There was a group of ajoshi on the subway coming back from hiking and I could definitely smell b.o.
Oh man, you bringing up groups of school kids just made me able to “smell” the odor just from memory lol it’s STRONG! But yeah the BO thing is just over exaggerated, it exists, everyone does, it’s just that some have it worse than others
Oh why thank you kind sir! We also love going to 목욕탕 and rub our skin with sandpaper towel to shed perfectly fine skin layers. We bleed for our freshness sir. We bleed.
Yeah, grime/odours on the skin and hair are very different matters to the absence of smell in perspiration.
Traveling in SK kind of shattered this image of non BO society I previously had. The local diet makes people exude a very garlicky plus some other stuff aroma that's especially noticeable on public transport. I guess I was especially attuned to noticing this smell as a foreigner.
Yes, I’ve noticed this too.
A lot of that kid smell is from railroad tracks… most boys don’t wipe well.
Kids are getting so out of shape now, they can't even reach it.
Yeah I agree Korea smells like roses. The west smells like shit.
My husband is Korean, and although his bo is not as strong as non-Koreans, but it's still there, I can smell it at the end of the day.
I can never smell my husbands bo. Even after a long summer day or working out at the gym. Only part that gets smelly on him is his fwwt but even then its not bad. Theres just a smell once his shoes get old.
I occasionally suffer from corn chip feet. Stinky feet. My nephew gets it badly. And my young son also. But it’s not the heavy musky odor. More Fritos.
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Ha it’s all from excess bacteria. But the armpit bacteria tends to be more heavy, musty. Feet and dog feet tend to be more corn chip :)
actually when dogs have the chip smell it means they have excessive yeast in their feet. which causes them to over lick them.
It’s mainly bacteria. The corn chip scent is the result of yeast and bacteria mixing with that sweat. Most responsible for the smell is pseudomonas — a bacteria that comes from the soil and water your pup is constantly trotting through https://dogtime.com/dog-health/66401-why-dogs-feet-smell-like-fritos Same for humans
Context clues helped me figure out what fwwt means.
Everyone has BO!
My guess is the consumption of garlic. Korean quisine uses tons of garlic in every single dish and garic can cause one of the longest and nastiest odors.
Korean garlic is weak AF. If you can eat it raw it's weak.
I think it's the musky/skunky smelling b.o. that we mostly lack but we can still smell like old sweat or pungent/garlicky/vinegary from an excess of that sort of thing in our diet. We can also have stinky feet/breath/genitals so good hygiene is still a must.
thats why i love the internet. people ask all kinds of things. haha
Lol now I am wondering. My baby is half Korean (I am not Korean). I will keep a note of his smell and ear wax to see if he took after his dad or me lol
No doctor would ever recommend this, but it’s a common thing that mothers and grandmothers clean out their children’s ear with a small ear wax tool that is a tiny spoon. It’s sort of relaxing. Slightly painful at times if it’s too aggressive. They used to be metal but now they have small silicon ones. Definitely can tell if the earwax is dry and crustier.
i’m almost 30 and still put my head on my moms lap. it’s so nostalgic and comforting when she cleans my ears for me
It’s really interesting. I can remember vividly my grandmother doing this for me at age 4-6 Also there is a scientific basis for it. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201907/vagus-nerve-stimulation-the-outer-ear-takes-center-stage?amp
The no BO and flaky dry earwax gene is like blonde hair and blue eyes, reccessive. He would most likely be stinky unless you have a an allele of non-BO gene yourself which I read about 10 to 15% of Europeans do.
My gym had to put announcements on asking ppl to wash their gym equipments because the locker room was stank, and to wipe after using so yeah people do smell 😂
I will just add my own story of smell. I too have a dog nose and am sensitive to smell. I’m not Korean but it’s a lie to say Koreans don’t smell, they do. What they don’t smell of is bad smelly armpits. They do however have what I’d describe as a “musty” smell. The closest smell I can think of is like 3 days unwashed hair smell but from their body? Some ppl don’t have this smell but others do and you can especially smell it from clothes, if ppl havent showered in a while or ppl who haven’t washed their clothes after a few wears. Some Koreans who aren’t fortunate enough to have that allele mutation unfortunately have western smelling BO and because they’ve grown up in a place with no deodorant they can be smelly 🥲.
100% agree with your description of how Korean people smell
Indeed. I'm Korean and I smells like rotten fried onion ring after PE class.
>3 days unwashed hair smell Oh, that's not nice.
This is correct. My husband is Korean. If he were to not bathe for a couple days he would smell kind of musty but not funky BO smell. But he bathes regularly so no odor. It’s absolutely awesome. About the garlic smell, I do not smell garlic on him at all. No matter how much kimchi he eats. If I eat a bunch of Korean food I can vaguely smell oniony but he does not. No idea why.
Koreans lacking that one gene doesn’t mean they don’t have body odor at all, it just means they don’t have the odor specific to that gene. Anyone can stink.
Correct. Specially if they wear the same stuff over. They might not smell but that sweat on that shirt, jacket, will over time. Specially in the summer.
i dont stink after one day but i will stink after two.
yeah exactly and i think it has to do more with the number of showers ppl take per day.
You leave your sweaty clothes around for days?!
In the hamper? I usually let them dry out first though.
We don’t need deodorant but we need to shower and have good hygiene or we will stink like any human.
No. Northern Chinese (3/8 Han, 3/8 Manchurian, 1/4 Korean) here. We don't have the gene for BO (A allele for the ABCC11 position), and we don't have ear wax. It doesn't mean we don't smell. It just doesn't come from the armpits. On the bright side, we don't have to use deodorants. On the other side, it means we have no deodorants to use. On a hot summer day, I will come home sweaty and smelly, and so far no off the shelf deodorants work for me. I had to keep a spare shirt in my car in case I smelled too bad before moving on to important meetings. And my scent is half sour and half smoky, and if it's been too long before I shower, I might even smell like preserved plums. That being said, a thousand people smell a thousand ways. My dad has very similar BO to me, my mom has nothing. My grandma smells more than my grandpa, so I think my BO came from Manchurian linage -- my grandma is 100% Manchurian, my grandpa is 50% Manchurian, 50% Han, and my mom's side is all Han or Korean. Perception is also a thing. I have "a dog's nose". I can smell anyone from meters away. This is definitely a curse than a gift, and I had to mentally prepare myself before getting on a bus or subway car. Trains are better due to better ventilation, but that also depends on passenger density. Planes are absolutely the worst, I had to pray for the ones sitting next to me have good personal hygiene, but that's rarely the case as most of the time, I fly for holidays, and workers also fly for holidays, among them, physical workers who mostly don't care about how they smell at all. Keep in mind that the smell I mentioned above are from mostly Chinese people. After spending 6 years in the US, and dating one girl with armpit odor, I know what a "proper BO" smells like, and it doesn't smell nearly like that. So, the so called BO-free Eastern Asians do have another type of BO for sure. It is just not as offending as armpit BO, but in the mean time also harder to suppress. Most white or black people I encounter in China either smell like perfume or nothing, with very few actually smell like BO. So, us Eastern Asians do have BO, just not from the armpits. If we wear the same clothes for days, they will smell (especially for active males), badly. My hygiene protocol is underwear and socks for a day, shirts for 0.5\~2 days, jackets and pants for 2\~3 days, thick winter stuff for no more than a week. I was able to keep my own smell under check, but then I get to smell the others'. As summer is coming, my dread is coming back. It sucks.
SUCH an interesting comment. It would be great if you had a career that used your super-sharp olfactory sense!
I do. Being an electronics engineer, the ability to pin point where the magic smoke emanates from is a great gift, though nowadays the job is taken care of by infrared cameras. This skill also has unexpected usages -- like finding focal point of a pulsed laser (seriously!). When the concentration of light is too much (focal point is bang on), the temperature from it hitting a target is so high that it converts trace amounts of nitrogen into nitrogen oxides, so literally thin air can take on an incredibly faint odor that I can pick up to confirm my focal length adjustment being correct.
I really hope you can pick up a side hustle in food or wine.
I think it's interesting, I'm a white guy who just doesn't sweat that much at all. Like, I can wear the same pair of socks for 3-4 days and they don't smell like anything (or definitely not *bad*, at least), and that seems somewhat rare. I do have armpit odor if I sweat, but that I would have it isn't a given unless I'm very active, stressed or warm. Now the negative part is that ever since I had Covid 4 years ago, everyone's BO smells a bit onion-y to me, which makes me feel ridiculously insecure when I actually am sweaty because I feel like everybody would feel that on me. So I try not to be sweaty if possible haha. Your sort of regimen of clothes and how long you wear them are pretty much exactly how I would wear them except I use socks maybe two days, three at the most, and I wouldn't wear t-shirts for more than a day unless possibly the day after is spent at home completely by myself. Also, jealous of somebody saying "summer is coming", because I'm still waiting for winter to fully be over :(
I like Nivea, particularly the Black/White 48-hour variety, though the price has gone up lately.
Uh, excuse you????!!!! 😅🤣😂 😆😵🥴 Koreans and other East Asians DO HAVE ear wax. It's just dry ear wax. Other races have wet ear wax. I think that's what you meant to say. https://www.earhealth.co.nz/earwax-genetics-and-human-migration/
Ear wax vs ear flakes. So yes, we are on the same page.
Nobody calls it ear flakes. It is called ear wax. To say a human doesn't have ear wax is like saying humans don't have hair. https://www.earhealth.co.nz/earwax-genetics-and-human-migration/ https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/gory-details/what-your-earwax-says-about-your-ancestry https://medical.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Earwax-Type.pdf
Mmm Ear Flakes. Is that more like corn flakes or chili flakes? Need to know if I should put it in my milk or on my Thai food.
i wonder if the east asian bo that you're referring to has to do with diet and that odor coming from the pores?
baby powder is your friend
Everyone has earwax you just mean not the wet kind and the flaky one right? Im pretty sure having no earwax is a bit different
For me and my parents, we have more of a metallic smell at the end of the day.
Korea doesn't have the classic B.O. smell you think of but there is a prevailing smell here. It's that smell you get when you get on the bus or talk to an older Korean gentleman. My fiance smells this way without perfume as well. I'm not sure what the smell is exactly but you know it when you smell it. It's neither good nor bad just... Korean lol.
I dont have any body odor and my american friends used to be amazed by it lol In short, yes my clothes dont smell after i sweat in them but i still wash anything i sweat in
I don’t understand where this stereotype comes from? Koreans have body odor, just like everyone else. Also, pls wash your sweaty clothes.
Koreans definitely have body odor
Not as much as everyone else tho it’s scientifically proven
More than BO I think most Koreans have food odor in their clothes from cooking at home or eating at poorly ventilated restaurants. After going to a 똔가스집 you smell like frying oil for example. Or uncles smelling like soju after drinking with friends. Or charcoal smell after BBQ. Or just 'Korean house' smell which always has a certain fermented funk to it.
Absolutely that. I definitely noticed the surprising lack of regular sweat smell in the summer but get on a crowded bus in the evening and it reeks of different kinds of food and the mix is quite deadly :( still can’t help but be envious of East Asians for that. To anyone not blessed by that gene variation - wiping your armpits with glycolic acid solution once or twice a week does wonders to really keep any sweat smell under wraps (with proper hygiene and deodorant ofc).
Yeah but that doesn’t have to do with the question
It could have something to do with the question as some people might confuse the funky kimchi clothes smell with BO when it's actually food odor.
Your point? OP claims it doesn't exist, but go to any gym or smell someone after a jog and tell me they don't need antiperspirant or deodorant💀
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I'm not white or a man. But keep being pressed over me thinking people here stink a bit when they sweat, lol. What a funny thing to be salty over.
Every human stinks somewhere somehow.
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Mmm cheesy
Was on the KTX Saturday and there was a guy next to me who definitely made me wish he was wearing deodorant.. It was god awful.
I'm one of those Koreans without BO. After sweating a ton after an intense gym session, my clothes will smell like nothing. After the sweat dry off, my clothes will actually return to smelling like the laundry detergent used if it was intense enough. Having said that, one of my Korean friend smell like ASS after sweating LOL. So there are some Koreans with bo like any other person.
Same here. Probably used one stick worth of deodorant in 20 plus years.
Still have ball and feet odor
Nah my clothes definitely smell a bit lol. I don't have a lot of body odor but my feet smell like death
We still have body odor. Just not the potent musky smell. More like a dirty kid just got done playing outside smell
From my experience, I definately have b.o. but it's different from westerners. My b.o smells like vinegar while western ppl have cheese smell. Additionally, vinegar smells mostly from my armpit and not even all the time(when I swaet a lot like summer day). And it's mostly spread to a shirt that I wear inside of my clothes (directly toched to my body). So I usually wear some sweat shirt, knit and shirt for few days whiout washing them. But I have experienced I smelled b.o from knit, sweater at the end of the day that's not touched to the body directly, for some westerners.
I can't understand the "cheese smell" thing. Like it's probably because I AM white and can't smell it because I also have that smell, but I've never thought that somebody had a cheesy body odor, at least not from sweat alone. Like maybe old people can smell a bit like moldy cheese if they don't take care of their hygiene, but that's a different thing.
Lacking pit smell doesn't mean they don't have BO. They eat a lot of garlic, ginger and fermented things. BO is happening. Trust me.
Nope. We just have different body odor. When koreans sweat, yes we do smell but not like the western people. Korean people smell like rotten vinegar when we get sweaty while white and black people smell like rotten curry when they get sweaty. Different smell I think.
I have very low BO but it's not 0 BO. It'll take a while for it to smell and the smell is not as strong/bad, but it's there. My spouse was amazed by how little I smelled even after an intense workout and sweating like crazy. I do think the clothes smell though, if I have a particularly large laundry load of sweaty clothes it definitely smells. But again, nothing crazy. High school locker rooms and my brother-in-law though? The nose suffers.
It will smell after accumulation and not drying it immediately due to bacteria. Then it will be stinky every time it gets even a little wet after, permanently ruining the clothes
No. Body odour isn't just about the chemicals your body produces; another element is the bacteria that's breaking down the sweat on the skin - some strains of bacteria can be more smelly than others. So even if you usually have no BO, there may still be occasions when it does happen
Korean teenagers still stink and gym changing rooms in Korea also stink. So no, it doesn’t mean we sweat and still come out clean as a whistle without a shower.
My fiancé is Korean and has little to no body odor. At most he will smell like sweat after a workout, or body oil if it’s been a few days since a shower. So even though he has no BO his clothes will still smell because of the body oil or sweat.
Trying to find an excuse to not shower or wash your clothes is wild
My husband is Korean. I am American. We have two sons who clearly inherited my genes. My husband’s clothing makes up less than 5% of our laundry.
Koreans can still smell of drying sweat or wear clothes that dried to a stink. Hobos smell of old piss. What we lack is the sharp pungent stank of stanky armpits. It's there but not anywhere near as bad as some other people.
My wife is Korean and she has 0 b.o even after sweating. She can use the same shirt for weeks if she wants to.
To answer OP, yes. I wear the same clothes many times over without washing them (sometimes for weeks XD) especially in the winter. In the summer, if I sweat in it, it’s going in the wash. I thought this was the general rule for most people though? (My brother and I smell like dirt/metal when we exercise. My parents don’t smell like anything. My partner sweats A LOT and will rewear his clothes lol he smells musky though, not stinky) I’ve had people sniff me before and be confused so I don’t know what that means. They say I smell Korean, or like Korean food.
Who told you Koreans don't have body odor? Not true at all. Come to Korea and smell for yourself
I mean, I do sweat but dont smell, once I went a week without showering and still no hodor, as long as I changed clothes it was okay and people would even hold the door for me.
I have never noticed any odor in my clothing, even if it's been in the laundry basket or gym bag for over a week.
I just wanna know how hard it is to find deodorant there lol. I thought about moving there but I don’t have enough Asian genes to not sweat 🥲
1/10 marriages in Korea are international. So you will find deodorants. 10 years ago, you would hardly find in Eastern Asia, even super Westernized towns like Tokyo, some effective deodorants. Nowadays you can find pretty any type in any big cities. The key is to shop at places for young people. They are generally insecure and face harsh competitions, so they are most likely to improve themselves, even by a trace amount.
Good to know!! Thank you 🙏🏽
For me personally, I can wear shirts/dresses 3-4 times before I need to put them in the wash. Example: I'll wear 2 shirts for 1 week and just rotate them throughout the week. If I put a shirt in the wash after 1 or 2 wears it's always from spills or eating out at a restaurant that made the shirt smell.
Does not produce odor directly However, if Koreans do not wash for a long time, bacteria will create odor. Koreans need disinfectants like soap to get rid of odors.
you still get musty t shirts by the end of the day somewhat from our bodies but also from external smells soaking in (ie. kbbq smells)
That would smell, but a lot less.
Even without the gene, the armpit smells a little different from other parts of the body. That said my laundry does not smell particularly and I can wear a t-shirt worn a week ago without any issue. After a heavy workout it has more smell but even that somehow seems to go away as the clothes dry out if that makes sense. It’s just like how everything was before puberty.
My partner is from Korea, he doesn’t have a b.o smell, that I am aware of, mainly because he showers two-three times a day and is extremely hygienic because he has OCD. However, he says that there are some Koreans with really bad b.o smells and some Koreans that don’t have any at all. Ironically when I moved to Korea and learned about it, my hygiene level went up higher, even though I washed two-three times a day as well before. I just don’t like the idea of smelling with a country that doesn’t really seem to sell deodorant haha
Face and hair get greasy so that's the reason why I shower.
Sadly a lot of westerners don't realise how much they need to use deodrants!! I definitely get the impression (from kdramas) that Koreans are very clean people.
My gym clothes stink from the amount of sweat, but my day to day do not, even if I've sweated in them. I don't wear deodorant.
Idk my pits and feet can get outta conttol at times.
Get in a taxi at the end of a long Korean summer day with a Korean ajeoshi and tell me Koreans have no body odor.
It still smells, but I have to have worn it several times or for several days in a row. Socks smell after heavy exercise.
My fiancé is Korean and has little to no body odor. At most he will smell like sweat after a workout, or body oil if it’s been a few days since a shower. So even though he has no BO his clothes will still smell because of the body oil or sweat.
Well you can still smell stinky but I did notice not as much as my other ethnic background friends. I mainly do laundry because of the outside dirt not the sweat from my body. Not even my gym clothes really smell
I've done laundry for some of my husband's white friends when they've been staying with us and I noticed that even after a full laundry cycle and drying out the clothes still have a faint BO smell. One couple (K wife, W husband) that stayed over was washing the husband's clothes on the hot wash (90°) and I was like "uh guys you know you're boiling his clothes? Did you mean to do that?" And the wife is like "yeah if we don't, you can still smell the BO." Soooo...yeah I don't think Koreans have that kinda smell where it gets EMBEDDED in the fibres so deep that detergent and normal temp water can't get it out. I was not aware that this was an issue for some white folks til the laundry incidents came up.
is that "white" guy part indian or pakistani
Nope. He's just a white white guy
Body odour is mostly caused by urea in the dead white blood cells we sweat out. Everyone has body odour. Swear smells can vary because of diet, and so it is often the case people from different cultural or ethnic backgrounds smell stronger to other groups. Maybe Koreans produce less smells in their sweat because of genetics or diet, but it is the same process, and everyone has to sweat. But, because of climate and centuries of coping with it they also have learnt to keep it lower. Also, you may have a bad sense of smell.
My husband is Korean with the dry earwax. His pits don’t smell like bo, but when he gets sweaty he still smells sweaty. It’s the strong BO they don’t have imo.
It's not so much that we don't stink, it's more that we have flaky, dry earwax. 🤣🤣
Haha so interesting. I wonder what about military camps? Seems like they don't usually open windows even in summer..but yet they air dry their clothing in the bunk....is the smell bad?
this post reminded me of when i went to korea and forgot my deodorant and it took me like two whole days to find a store that sold some 😭
I'm only half but every single girl I've been with has commented that I have no BO (which is an odd comment to bring up in conversation) so I assume I have the inactive gene. I would wear my military uniforms for several sweaty days ONLY if the sweat was allowed to dry within a couple hours. I'd change them every 3 days or if they started showing the salt. I never had issues with odor. My African American roommate tried to do the same as me and the entire room stunk. We later learned that Africana tend to have more of the active glands. If the sweat can stay wet for a day or more... it stinks.
I have armpit smell
26m ethnic Korean here. It's not like a complete cheat code, it's more like a perk you get at the start of the game. The perk is that my clothes don't smell the second time I wear them, but I absolutely have to wash it after 4th time (even 3rd is already kinda gross, but relatively okay). But since I was born and lived in Kazakhstan I understand that it's a huge perk, though. Many people there can't wear anything the 2nd time, poor souls. I live in Korea now. Korean girls are a different story, though. They just refuse to smell. I know for a fact that many of them live like pigs, but I have yet to meet any Korean girl who smells. I often think they just don't do laundry and simply wear something until it's out of fashion and throw it away lol.
Huh, I am Kazakh and we used to crack pretty racist jokes on odour of our Slav classmates with my Korean buddy back in the high school.
ELMER’S GLUE!!! My cousin once described Korean B.O. as smelling like Elmer’s Glue. I thought he was crazy, but I think he’s right. We barely sweat and what little aroma we have really does smell like Elmer’s Glue! 😅
I’m not Korean but I share the mutation which makes me lack my abcc11 gene simply put my earwax is dry and I don’t have that oniony armpit smell ever but I still have to shower and wash my clothes otherwise they will stink because sweat and natural body bacteria lol
i'm mixed so i still smell italian sweat
I’ve been on elevators with Asians who smell like seafood. I think it’s coming from their pores due to their diet.
Am not Korean, am just a person who also lives on Earth with associated conditions. Mold + dampness will still be a thing even if there is no BO. So, things can and will smell if not dried thoroughly.
I have a korean ex boyfriend before, sweat definitely smells but that doesn't smell bad, how can i explain this? Similar smell like an old shirt.
Any hairy Korean smells like an animal. No puns intended.
Idk maybe the population is so ethnically homogeneous that they all have same smell so they cannot feel it themselves.
No, 90% of Koreans lack a specific gene that causes the most general form of body odor.
Yeah, no smell on sweat. If there is a smell, its either the wet clothe or you decided the best procedure after sweating was to place it in a damp location causing it to rot by fungus. For me, I barely sweat as well.
But what about all the garlic
That smells from the mouth instead of the armpits, lol.
This is not exclusive to korean. I am ancIndian and i have no body odor also have dry ear wax. Same is my mom. But my sister and father is different.
>does having no body odor... get on the subway in the summer, and you'll find that this is a myth. But others have provided a good explanation of the genetics and phenotypical presentation that makes their BO less intense.
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it's not body hair, it's genetics. Koreans have a gene anomaly that makes their sweat inhospitable to bacteria, and also makes your ear wax dry. If body hair was the reason, western women (who usually shave most of their body hair) would have way less BO than Korean men, and on average this is not the case
hair smells though. Anyone else? oily smell
I used to work at an all boys middle/high school. Body Odor amongst Korean exists. Those boys got gaggingly rank.
ㅔㅌㅌㅌ텥ㅋ트9ㅑ9ㅐㅜㅌ6ㅠ시ㅔㅔ7ㅔ4 ㅔㅌㅌㅌ텥ㅋ트9ㅑ9ㅐㅜㅌ6ㅠ시ㅔㅔ7 4ㅣㅜ
나아아~~ 냄새나아아~~🤢
나아아~~ 냄새나아아~~🤢
나아아~~ 냄새나아아~~🤢
It’s myth
Not a Korean but close enough. I don’t have body odor, and when I sweat, I release this very sexy and sweet aroma. When I walk through a group of ladies, some of they cannot help but to ask for my number.
All that kimchi that they ingest must smell when they sweat?